She must learn again to speakstarting with Istarting with Westarting as the infant doeswith her own true hungerand pleasure and rage.

-- Marge Piercy

Apr 26 Hear That? It's The Call To Create...

As is true with so many interesting things in life, it started out with a contest.

On June 30, 2011, we accepted the challenge of writing 15 blog posts each during the month of July. At that point, one of us (Liz) had exactly one blog post to her name. The other of us (Michele) had recently reentered the blogosophere after some time away and was still trying to find her rhythm with it.

We know ourselves as writers, so we knew it would not be easy. And it wasn’t. For better or worse, we hadn’t yet learned the “rules” of blogging and so, without knowing it, we broke pretty much every one of them. Our posts were not short, did not have titles that included the words “how to” or the promise of a list of some kind, and were not necessarily easy reading (and, therefore, not easy writing).

Later, we would learn the rules and face the question of whether we had to choose between “writing” and “blogging.” And then we took a class called Artful, Heart-full Blogging where we learned how to be writers who blog, and how to break the rules on purpose.

That month of collaboration, as challenging as it was, started us on the road to Faith Squared. As we planned out topics to write about for the contest, and sent drafts of blog posts back and forth on a daily basis, and whined to each other when we felt stuck, and celebrated each and every word-related breakthrough, we found our individual voices as blogger-writers and discovered a magical rhythm together that added depth and perspective to our work far beyond what we brought on our own.

Project You is your showcase. For one month, this is your page, to do with what you will. Follow the rules or make up your own. Share your poetry or prose, essays or stories, fiction or non-fiction, or a little bit of each. It’s up to you.

This isn’t a contest and there are no requirements for how much you write, but it is our hope that you will get a little uncomfortable in the process, maybe set a goal that feels ever-so-slightly out of reach. We’ll provide some general guidelines and help with editing, proofreading, brainstorming ideas…whatever you need.

If you write or want to write, we want to hear from you. Whether it feels scary or exciting or the perfect combination of the two, we encourage you to heed the call to create. We know a few things for sure: 1) pushing yourself creatively opens doors to ideas and possibilities that would otherwise remain locked; 2) knowing yourself as a writer can only happen by writing; and 3) the world needs to know what you have to say.

If there’s any part of you that’s feeling the tiniest bit intrigued, or if you already know you’re ready to jump in with both feet, contact us now for more details.